Quotes
by LunaPadma
Summary: Leo was not a believer in inspirational quotes. He literally once puked on a Hang In There calendar, which, in his defense, did feature kittens. That being said, Leo was a fan of quotes. A Typeface One-Shot.


Leo was not a believer in inspirational quotes. He literally once puked on a Hang In There calendar, which, in his defense, did feature kittens.

That being said, Leo was a fan of quotes. Funny quotes, stupid quotes, sad quotes, book quotes, movie, quotes, grammatical quotes that yell at you because everyone knows that 'quotes' is a verb and it should really be 'quotations'.

Take this one, from this one book series that made no sense whatsoever, so eventually he Wikipedia'd it and called it good. It kind of just described his entire Demigod Existence, and exactly what was wrong with it.

"My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes."

It wasn't even that it described his life, but it was just so, like, why me? Why do I have to do this? And it did make him feel better that other average people were shoved into situations like he was, even if they were fictional.

He tried that one on Chiron, who laughed and sent him away, saying, "Please. Doug tried that one on me before he ever wrote it down in his books."

He'd accepted that Chiron, Jason, Reyna, Percy, or Annabeth wouldn't buy it.

He had to wonder, though, if it would work on Gaia.

_There was this other quote that described his life ADE (After Death of Esperanza) and BCHB (Before Camp Half-Blood). He'd overheard it from a movie that a stereotypically perfect family was watching on Thanksgiving._

_Leo was there because, well, he was hungry. He made off with their turkey and mashed potatoes, and he almost took the pumpkin pie, but then he heard this quote and dropped it. _

"_He's a runner. That's what the state called him when they took him from me. Every foster home they sent him to…he'd slip out the window at night and come looking for me."_

_Because the truth was, that's what Leo was doing. It wasn't running away from his mother's memory, no, not the fire. But trying to find her, too. _

_The losing part was easy. Losing's always easy. You can leave it at a McDonalds or the mall or your math class or even never touch it and it'll be gone. It wasn't even always your fault. _

_It was always the finding that was tricky and troublesome._

_But that's life, he guessed._

**His life was divided into BCHB and ACHB. Saving the world and running from it.**

**But he'd always wondered, what comes next?**

**Someone once told him (okay, it was Annabeth) that, "To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." And he'd thought about that a lot. More than a lot. He'd thought about it from a mythological standpoint, a psychological standpoint, and whatever other standpoint he could possibly name, which was a surprisingly short list.**

**But the thing was he didn't want a next great adventure. He didn't even want this great adventure. He wanted to stay at camp and make stuff that wasn't critically important to the survival of humanity. **

**Godsdangit, he wanted a childhood. A teenagerhood. The life of an average demigod.**

**He wanted a pool, a deck chair, and a drink served in a coconut shell. He wanted to relax.**

**So if dying was some great adventure, he wanted to stay living at all costs.**

If he closes his eyes and tries to think back far enough, he can remember his mother saying a line from her favorite movie.

"Life is pain. Whoever says otherwise is selling something." She was allowed to say it, but he wasn't. She got upset whenever he did.

But it was true. Life was pain. Life sucked. Life had a myriad of problems and the only people who didn't feel them were living in a bubble or dead. Or both.

But maybe she didn't want him to give up too quickly. Because (he could admit) sometimes there were beautiful things to go along with it, too. Like the whirr of oiled machinery, and the way a dragon can fly, and the face of an Aphrodite girl when you walk in on her making out with your best friend.

_**And maybe that was the point of that one quote that fell under 'inspirational'. Like, you can't know joy without pain or something. Because life is pain and it's not fair, just fairer than death, but that's okay, because it's adventure time, and let's run baby run and don't ever look back and go find your mom and save the universe while we're at it, because that's not fair either, because why should a couple kids save the universe constantly and nobody else, but fair doesn't always mean the same and maybe just maybe that's how you find happiness.**_


End file.
